Feminism/ Buddhism
RuddyDuck9
MD, USA Veteran
In my studies this morning, I came across this little gem, which I have shortened so as not to take up too much space:
"With four things women win power in this world... [she is} capable at her work, manages the servants properly, is loved by her husband, and guards his wealth." A bit further down it says, "And how is she loved by her husband? Whatever her husband considers unlovely, she would never do, not even to save her life."
I know this text originates 2500+ years ago in another culture and that the Feminist Revolution had not happened yet.... HOWEVER, I still struggle with antiquated notions like this in Buddhist text. I mean, women across the globe are still fighting to be holy-people in their own right rather than just servants for the men at a temple.... so I think it's still relevant. I have no qualms about making known my peaceful Buddha-inspired Feminism. Still, I scoff at this "not even to save her own life" stuff.
Thoughts?
Comments
'I know this text originates 2500+ years ago in another culture and that the Feminist Revolution had not happened yet..'
Exactly. Even after the Revolution, we (women) still deal with this, no?
Revolution where? Many other cultures and countries are still thick in the shit of dealing with the social separations between the sexes.
'I still struggle with antiquated notions like this in Buddhist'
Best to deal with your struggles. The text won't change, and frankly.... I've seen and read alot worse misogynist things within Buddhist Temples.
Where is the struggle coming from? Contradictions happen all around us.
Tara, the First Feminist:
http://www.lionsroar.com/tara-the-first-feminist/
'However, in recent years there has been a movement toward gender equality within Buddhism. The Dalai Lama has been speaking more and more about the importance of having women in government leadership positions in order for peace to be possible on the earth. The Seventeenth Karmapa has promised to do what he can to reinstate the full ordination of women in Vajrayana Buddhism. In the Theravada tradition, full ordination has returned."
@RuddyDuck9 So sorry...I haven't even spoken first to you. Nice to meet you.
MD huh? My family used to travel to Aberdeen when I was kid. Awww...memories of live crabs on top of a newspaper table in the garage, hahaha
Hi @Vastmind !
So the best plan of action is to ignore those who practice Buddhism in a way which is not to my liking? :-S Can there be a Buddhism practice today which doesn't need to be defended for its misogynistic past? I have faith in 17th K's ability and desire to promote equality between the sexes, but I DON'T have faith in the rest of the world's ability to follow in his footsteps.
I mean, seriously, I wish he'd just live forever, 
Thanks for posting that article. I enjoyed it very much. I haven't done much study on the 21 Taras, and plan on doing so now that I have some incentive to.
I seriously enjoy (and am benefitting from) Buddhism. I would rather forge a feminist way than cop out on it just because I'm offended by an ancient scripture... but how can a person be enlightened while still making rules about women being "beneath" men phisically and spiritually? I tend to rationalize this by telling myself that knowing the ultimate truth of something and becoming enlightened doesn't necessarily mean that every act and thought thereafter will be perfect..... just that the pursuit and knowledge of what is neccesary in that pursuit is there.
Am I rambling too uselessly? I'm not even sure I'm making sense to myself!
I hear ya....
AFA as best plan of action?? Well, your talking to someone who follows a teacher that promotes Buddhist Activism (Thich Nhat Hanh)....so...I'm pretty socially active, but I can't begin to guess how the other circles/centers/schools go about an actual plan. Stay involved if it's something your passionate about. But don't be attached to the idea that you will or can change the entire world.....Your not that precious. Real talk.
This has been going on since the beginning of time, and will continue to for many, many more long times. Progress and change is possible....but it's very slow....Little droplets of water make a mighty ocean.
'Can there be a Buddhism practice today which doesn't need to be defended for its misogynistic past?'
Of course.
Don't play defense. Play offense.
You cannot defend the whole of Buddhism. Past or present.
Don't be against anything....be for something. That should help keep the compassionate feelings going for the other side and metta also.
For example....Im not against war. I'm for peace.
I'm not against energy. I'm for sustainable energy.
I'm not against men or the natural differences. I'm for the equal treatment of women.
FWIW, I think your rationalization works.
What are you currently involved in/with?
I think it helps to keep in mind that even the revered sutras were written by regular people subject to the blindness of their social rules and biases. Since they were written by men who had left the family behind, I think we have an idealized picture of how a home life is supposed to function. The wife is unwaveringly loyal and devoted and a great cook on top of that. The children honor their parents and wash their hands before every meal. The husband works hard and defends his family.
Maybe a bit of yearning for mom has crept into the monk's picture of the perfect mother. It's kinda sweet that the old monk remembers his mother as being this way. But I don't think women should look to rules written by bachelor monks living in men only temples for advice on how to be a wife and mother.
Strange to think how, ancient or modern, men can idolize the "mother" while treating women as ____________[you fill in the blank
]
Great points by everyone here.
We should also remember that what we see as obsolete thinking of the past is relative, and many ways we see one another today will be obsolete in the future.
I suppose that brings us back to not being attached to any point of view.
Yep. It's just like any other fashion that comes n goes....we've all got our simian brains to thank for that.
It'd known as the 'Madonna/Whore complex'. There are variations.
Forgive me for saying so, but in the initial stages of practice, regarding this specific point, it is so much easier for a man to recommend and practise detachment from 'any point of view', than it is for a woman.
Ignorance is largely the reflections of our** need** to define
the who & what that is within our tribe compared to the who or what that is not.
Much of a sincere meditation practice is the process of learning how to allow our hearts & minds to move beyond such tribal limitations.
The difficulty here is how to try to address the cause of any unfairness
without identifying ourselves to such a cause and thereby undoing our efforts
through our recreation of the very tribal ignorance that first instigated it.
It can and should be done, but with no less attention towards our own attachments around such a cause.
That's good thinking, however, being obsolete implies it was useful at one point and I don't see how sexism has ever helped anybody.
That's all well and good for things for which we can be agnostic but once something is seen it won't be unseen. Trying to keep each other down is harmful.
I always kind of liked it in Zen practice that men and women sit down, erect the spine, shut up and focus the mind. In such a situation, there is infinite room for sexism ... and no room at all.
If all people did, was to meditate, then no, it wouldn't rear its ugly head.
Unfortunately.....
I think inequality is as rife in Buddhism as anywhere else, we only have to look at the battles faced by women to be ordained in the Christian church or those seeking same sex marriage, the Tibetan monastery system etc. It is a long road to reach true equality, and the voting public of both UK and USA seem dangerously close to taking a major step back in the coming months. But of course there beacons of light, TNH and 17th K, and of course wonderful female teachers like Pema Chodron.
@RuddyDuck9 "another culture" indeed. The passage you quote would have been politically correct in most of the western world till perhaps towards the end of the 20th century. Another culture my foot.
Would the differences between the now of Western Living and the "then" of Western living not imply a different culture? I think culture is just as subject to change by time as it is by Geographic Location. I personally live in a Geographical area which is quite insulated and archaic in its state of mind. The general "culture" here is one of anti-feminism and anti-openness.
I apologise if I implied in any way that Western Culture doesn't have it's issues... because MAN, DOES IT EVER have problems.... bountiful ones! That's why I'm making this post. It's 2016 for goodness' sake.
@RuddyDuck9 pardon me but you clearly separated the time lapse by saying "2500 years". In my opinion your mention of "another culture" is clearly patronizing in nature.
@federica please don't boot me out yet ma'am. I'm still working on my anger issues.
See the note at the end of this sutta:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn05/sn05.002.olen.html
@Swaroop Though I admit I am ignorant of many things, I hope you will accept my apology and hear that I intended no harm. I may unknowingly participate in offensive language, and appreciate the opportunity to learn. Part of this entire equation is the truth of the fact that I cannot possibly truly understand the roots of something which has originated in the past and in another country. I was not there at the time of origination. I would argue this about all of us... for even those of us who consider past lives to be a truth will not remember them (unless we are very very lucky). Therefore... how can any of us illuminate the sexism inherent in the phrasing above?
"Whatever her husband considers unlovely, she would never do, not even to save her life."
Regardless of nation. Regardless of time period. Regardless even of who spoke these words... The phrase is misogynistic. Period. Not because it references a woman giving her life for a man, but because the woman's POV is not considered. Maybe I'm okay risking my life for my husband's happiness... shrug that's MY choice, and therefore a feminist choice... but when it becomes a command, it crosses a line.
Separating myself from the text and/or any mistaken placement of the original quote, I believe in a lifestyle where this sort of language is based on communication rather than obeyance. If I wanted to defer to my husband rather than being one part of a team... well, there's enough blind religious fundamentalism out there apart from Buddha. But I choose Buddha. And the Buddha of today sees the equality of the sexes as a legitimate possibility. Logic tells me this.
@SpinyNorman "the nature of personhood" is a beautiful phrase in this context. What I'm saying is... I'm more than my body. So are any other female Buddhists.... So are any women anywhere.
In a nutshell - yes deal with it.
We as a society are SOOOOOO politically correct that we cause more issues and heartache for ourselves than needs to be. Ok so it pisses in your pocket that there are misogynistic texts in Buddhism, it's not like your anger or indignation will erase them or alter them. Breathe, centre and move on. Like @Vastmind said - there are much worse out there. ALL paths with a vast history have periods of time with texts that will piss off today's feminists. It's history my friend. There was a time where ALL civilisation treated women like property, second class citizens and are unbearable to us in today's society. Heck, even the Buddha didn't want women at first. Only when he was older did he take women into his "group" including his aunt and wife.
I personally think the most important thing nowadays is that this attitude is not prevalent or acceptable in Buddhism today. And I am yet to find that anywhere.
Namaste _ /\ _
Re reading this is sounds a bit harsh and I hope you don't take it that way, but I am not altering it because I truly do believe in what I wrote. I do admit that I don't know if you were tongue in cheek and if you were I apologise for misunderstanding you.
I iz a simple gal. Try not to have any ...
Then feel free to work on them, but don't use your "anger issues" to justify or excuse comments you make which might be deemed inflammatory.
If you have anger issues, that's your problem, not mine.
I just have to monitor input and decide whether it is socially appropriate.
It may also be worth remembering that the Buddha's teachings, sermons and general words of wisdom, were not committed to 'paper' until well after his death. As such it is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE that those scribing his teachings, sermons and general words of wisdom, did so with an amount of personal bias.
That is to say, they might have embellished his teachings with some views and opinions of their own and in accord with the prevalent social situations.
Even today in Nepal, India and Pakistan, there are some customs in which the wife is deemed to be a second-class citizen, in that a woman is joined, in an arranged marriage, to a man she has hardly known or in some cases, even met. And she has neither choice, nor say in the matter.
(In the UK, there is a rising voice of objection to women of Indian and Pakistan culture being forced into marriages, and it does happen. )
A woman in those days was virtually without exception, subject to an arranged marriage. As such, she had certain cultural and social duties, some of which are still expected to be borne today, unquestioningly.
So it's hardly surprising that those committing the Buddha's words to paper, upon coming across something he said that went against the cultural/social norm, might have recoiled from committing his original words, and would have, instead, added their own inflection...
Read the article.
The sutras say some misogynist things because the culture these monks lived in like many cultures then and now are male dominated. There is simply no getting around it. The history of the early Sangha as recounted in those sutras shows his followers struggled with the issue of whether or not to allow women total equality. In the end, the women lost the battle soon after Buddha's death.
But if we simply accept that when it comes to women's liberation the people who wrote the sutras were not enlightened, then we can at least ask the important question. How much does this affect the practice or teachings of Buddhism today? True, the old traditional temples and schools are still segregated and men run the show. But in the West, we see nothing unusual with women running a sangha in many of our schools. More important, you won't sit in a temple or meditation hall and hear a sermon on how women should stay at home and devote themselves to their husbands. Unlike the first Arahants, we don't blame the woman for tempting us to lust and treat a woman in a monk's robe as second class.
I've heard it argued that the biggest problem with the traditional schools like Tibet or Japanese Zen that want to expand into the West is the equal inclusion of women. Not because they have some religious objection, but because it's something new to them and a lot of times they don't handle it well. Heck, it can be said even we folks in the enlightened West don't handle it well a lot of times.
Dhammachick I think all future sentiments should be auto-defined as slightly tongue-in-cheek but also in all seriousness.... both.
Yes, it's as confusing to me as it is to everyone else.
That being said, I need some tough-love boot-in-the-pants logic just as much as the next person. That's a big reason I love Buddhism. It's beautiful but doesn't sugarcoat the important stuff. The 17 year old inside of me wants so badly to find some complete feminist doctrine that automatically makes sense, but the 27 year old me understands that this would be impossible, and that as times change, so do the realizations of philosophies. Also, I try to remind myself that while SidG was enlightened... he was still HUMAN, and as federica and cinorjer mention, so were the scribners of these suttas human (and in all likelihood, male). I think if I met SidG today he'd laugh at some of the off color stuff that's in the suttas.
I have to keep reminding myself that the only thing I can change is me.
This thread has been a joy to participate in though. I'm always learning from you folks.
Oh, we're all learning, but that will stop one day, and we shall all know everything. That time will be known as "Whenhellfreezesover" time....
I had to read the Anguttara Nikaya to put the last part in context so I could put her article in context and I have to agree with her.
They didn't even try to make it sound like something he would have said and it flies in the face of the rest of the sermons.
My thoughts are that not everything in the scriptures should be taken literally.
Indeed. I could have chosen a better word than "obsolete."
This is precisely why enlightened masters say, "Be a Buddha, don't be a Buddhist. Be a Christ, don't be a Christian."
Could you give us a source and link to this quote and an indication as to which "enlightened masters " said this, please? Thank you so much.
In what way would you take that scripture then?
I've been trying to remember if I've come across sexist attitudes in the various UK Buddhist groups I've been involved in, nothing is leaping out at me.
There is still a long way to go... In many ways equality is a temporary stop at the halfway point, where we really want to go is a place where compassion is given to all and the differences are celebrated.
Right....Individuals already do that. The hard task is getting it universally accepted AND practised.... And it has little to do with compassion, and much more to do with educating a different mind-set.
Sexism, racism, cultural imperialism is rife in Dharma.
In the Theravadin tradition for example, the women have to go up for food dana after the men. Then the lay-plebs get the scraps. Monks act as superior beings not on the basis of virtue but by virtue of being monks. Shameful. The most experienced nun is meant to be subservient to the newest monk. Ridiculous.
Tibetans think their superstitious culture is superior, when it is just a medieval theocracy. Most Western dharma centres are white and middle class.
Deluded customs are mostly ignored ... not important. Sorry, am I missing something? It is important.
http://opcoa.st/0s48j
It would be good to see more women as contemporary Buddhist teachers. I can think of a few, but most of them seem to be men.
A figure of speech. Hyperbole to be precise.
You mean like we have to take "kill the Buddha you see on the road?" Obviously we're not taking anyone's life here. It's a spiritual and symbolic "killing" of falseness and vanity, because, just when we think we know something, we really find that we know nothing. Yeah?
That was Osho who said that. If @techie had known of the esteem Osho is held in this forum I think he would not mentioned it I think.
I'd like to know under what circumstance was the wife's disobeying her husband a life or death situation for her? I honestly can't think of one.
"No, I must obey and honor my husband. Go ahead and kill me, then!"
I wouldn't say the forum is entirely against Osho
He had his good points as well as a few flaws, which could also be said of a number of Buddhist teachers.
I remember they all seemed very posh when I first went to Triratna in East London back in the 1980s. They had managed to get a few cockneys involved, they were always smoking roll-ups and drinking tea, gawd blimey, salt of the earth.
Yeah, but sometimes he really could be a bit of a cockwomble.....
You are right to scoff. Right to question. Right to be a feminist. Right to point out the Dharma cockwombles, misogynist monks, cultural and spiritual imperialists, man haters, Christian baters (oops that would be me outed) etc.
Quite right. Existence is dukkha? Sometimes it is a battle with no help from the spice gals and beastie boys ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michaela-haas/10-tibetan-buddhist-women-you-need-to-know_b_2863427.html
Be kind.
Hm well, I reckon his talks on the evils of patriarchal society are some of the most interesting. There are a lot of hints that society around 10,000 BC was largely matriarchal at least in Europe, and that with agriculture and the coming of the age of kings there was a swing the other way.
I'm certainly not going to deny that women have had a very raw deal in many parts of society for the last few thousand years. And perhaps to redres that balance, to make sure the last hints of patriarchal thinking are eliminated, a celebration of femininity is more appropriate than a grand discussion of 'feminism'.
You have to see this material in context, a lot of it was in talks given to people who came out of the flower power movement, when this was more accepted.
@lobster bless your swimmerets and eyestalks! Thanks for the article!
^^^ You are welcome. I did good? [Lobster proudly leaves naughty corner ... oops ... pride
... back to the naughty corner with me ...] 
Enlightenment does not have a gender, class, race, political affiliation. Enlightenment transcends religious divisions, clubs and region.
Wisdom, compassion and the other unfoldings beneath the sham karmic construction is pristine.
Simple really ... as we know ...